


blackwatch ties

by Snowsheba



Series: thanks, dad. love, hana [10]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch, Gen, first impressions are critical to success
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 06:38:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11098968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowsheba/pseuds/Snowsheba
Summary: exulansis-ssaid: lena, genji, mccree –blackwatch days? orfirst impressions vs current(takes place well before the events of thanks, dad. love, hana)





	blackwatch ties

**Author's Note:**

> alternate title: dangerous people make excellent friends

* * *

_first_

* * *

He is spitfire, but not in the way that Gabriel had expected.

He runs hot and fast and angry from the very first day Gabriel meets him, of course – wild and unstoppable and unpredictable and a damn good shot. He’s young and pissed and he’s covered in the scars of his life, tattoos and scabs and blood dripping from one nostril as he sits, silent and fuming, in the plain metal chair in the dim interrogation block. He’s the gasoline that shines iridescent and rainbow, he’s the flames that explode when the match falls, he’s the smoke that burns going in, and most of all, he’s one of the smartest kids Gabriel has ever known.

Jesse is tough as nails and quick as a whip and he rages and he trash-talks and he fights with the best of them. But here’s the thing: he does it quietly, and that takes everyone off-guard.

Gabriel had been worried Jesse wouldn’t make any lasting connections in Blackwatch because of his temper. Instead it’s because Jesse is withdrawn and silent, speaking only when spoken to and even then usually in Spanish. That’s why Gabriel deals with him most often, as it turns out, grudgingly at first because he has other shit to do than babysit a new recruit, but less so as time goes on because – because something about young Jesse and his Deadlock ties is endearing somehow, maybe, he’s not sure.

Maybe it’s because Jesse picks up on everything faster than anyone in the room, the way he can hit a target fifty meters out with a single shot, how he’s small and compact but intimidating as hell when he needs to be. Maybe it’s because he’s a natural loner who learns how to spin his looks to maximize his charm from Angela in the medical wing. Maybe it’s because he’s toothy smiles and drawling country twang, terrifyingly lethal and clinically efficient. Whatever the case, Gabriel hardly notices when Jesse ends up as his go-to agent for anything time-sensitive or even sensitive in general, and then it’s like he’d always been there.

(Jesse is spitfire, sure. But he’s the kind who was honed into a weapon at an age too young, and Gabriel feels like shit for taking advantage of that – but that’s the way Blackwatch goes.)

* * *

He’s lonely, Jesse thinks the moment he lays eyes on him, but more importantly, he’s dangerous.

It’s not hard to make that assumption, after a while – by the time Angela’s done wiring him up and completed the cyborgification, whatever it’s called, Genji Shimada is a young man with enough emotional and mental baggage to bring down a plane. He’s broody and quiet and sharp as his blade, both in words and in observations, and when Angel finally lets Gabriel and Jesse in to meet him properly, Genji says absolutely nothing at all.

He’s not much to look at – small, slim, smooth, tubes and wires sticking out of him and eyes glowing red, but that’s all aesthetics to Jesse. No, what really sets him on edge is the way Genji stands: not tall but proud, muscles coiled and ready to move at the drop of a hat, the way his eyes never leave Jesse’s face for a second, unblinking and unmoving. This is a person who has nothing to lose, and those types are very dangerous, Jesse knows, because he can never be sure what it is Genji is fighting for.

And then Angela is speaking, explaining something to Gabriel, who nods along and listens attentively, and Genji’s unending focus shifts. It’s like a weight off of Jesse’s shoulders, when Genji turns his attention from him to Angela, and the more he watches, the more he realizes that he’d misjudged. Angela doesn’t seem to realize how Genji stays close to her, how she places a hand on Genji’s shoulders and leaves it there, how she flashes him a glance every now and then as she describes Genji’s abilities and what to be careful of and his combat abilities and would you like to see a demonstration, Commander?

And then Genji feels Jesse’s stare and turns his head to glare, and Jesse merely quirks a lip and shrugs. He’s not looking for a fight, not with this one. He’d rather live another day.

(The people who have one thing to fight for are the most dangerous, Jesse knows – because they’re the ones who will protect it until their dying breath.)

* * *

She takes Genji off-guard the moment she moves.

Angela had said she had found someone who would give him a challenge. He hadn’t believed her for a second – no one could match his speed, his stamina, not with a body like his – and, looking at the slight, perky woman in front of him, he’s been pretty goddamn sure that wouldn’t change. The blue light secured to her chest is intriguing, but not enough so for him to be cautious; he glows in weird places, too, his own eyes red and angry, and so he settles into position and seethes and when the match begins, he moves on autopilot.

But then she isn’t there, and his shuriken hit nothing but empty air.

In fact, she isn’t anywhere, and it’s only because his auditory sensors pick up on a strange, distinctive whirr that he dodges backwards, avoiding a spray from one of her pistols as she arches through the air above him, a small, vicious smirk on her face that he could only see for an instant before there’s a flash of blue and she’s meters away from him, laughing cheekily at his visible shock.

“What’s the matter, love?” she says when she – blinks – from where he’s watching her to somewhere beside him, and he whirls and ducks underneath her bullets, only to startle backwards when her pistols are in his face and she says, grinning, “Got that feeling of déjà-vu?”

“ _Fuck you_ ,” he snarls in Japanese, but of course she doesn’t understand or doesn’t care too, because she’s laughing in his face again as she blinks away. _Unfair_ , he thinks on loop, _unfair, unfair, unfair_ , never mind he’s a cyborg with augmented senses and inhuman speed and reflexes, and he lets out a wordless growl as he chases his prey in earnest.

(She takes him off-guard that day, and she earns his respect, too. And that – as Jesse can testify – is not something easily won.)

* * *

_now_

* * *

Lena is still small and lean and terribly fast, tackling Genji in a hug before zipping over to drag Jesse in as well, and their laughter echoes through the hall.

There’s a sort of childish happiness between the three of them, Jack thinks, and they’re simultaneously younger and older than the people he had once known them as. Jesse radiates warmth and smoke and smooth, country drawl, and Genji laughs with his body and plays with his words, and Lena is loose and wild and free and relentlessly cheerful, and – they’ve changed, the three of them, tough as nails and hellbent on their own personal agendas but gentler, now, somehow. Not softer, though, not any less lethal and brutal and efficient as they’ve always been, but gentler in the way they speak to each other and move with each other, and Jack is reminded of the years that have gone by.

There’s a coil of warmth, of desire, in his chest; he wishes Gabriel was here to see this. It’s fleeting, though, brief and gone as soon as it had come, and then Hana nudges her elbow against his side and says, “They act like they have not smiled or laughed in days.”

He can’t begin to explain why that might be to her, not without going into the past that he’d rather avoid. Instead he says, “Maybe you should ask them about it sometime,” and Hana shrugs, not dismissive but not interested, and he leaves it at that.

(It’s rare to find a friendship the three of them share – but maybe it’s not surprising, because Blackwatch ties are stronger than anything Jack knows.)

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on [tumblr](http://snowsheba.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
